Sooo…Far from the Traditional Foods Diva I hope, dream and aspire to be my reality lately has been more along the lines of frazzled house-wife doing good to get food. Any food. Cooked and on the table for my family to eat.

I am attempting to come to term’s with this new and hopefully temporary phase of my life. This ‘phase’ where there is literally no time to spend preparing the from scratch spread’s I have been known to produce in times past.  Not just from scratch foods, but also foods that are the kindest to my budget. Right now, compromise is what is getting me through.

There has been guilt. A lot. Here I am blogging about traditional foods. Or SUPPOSED to be blogging about traditional foods and I am doing next to nothing with traditional, from scratch food preparations lately. So I’ve been hiding from my blog. Today however it was decided that I should write about my current kitchen Motto which is “Easy-Peasy” Don’t laugh. That’s a real term in my world. The yardstick with which I  measure any and all kitchen or food related projects.

Here is a break-down of what easy-peasy means in my life right now.

Easy-Peasy means buying cultured butter from grass-fed cow’s for our daughter. I found it at Whole Foods as a “limited time” item. Since it’s limited I bought several packages and put the extra’s in the freezer. Don’t know how long this seasion of my life is going to last where even making a single batch of my own butter is unrealistic but just incase it’s longer than I hope it is, There’s the freezer stash. This particular butter is so expensive my husband and I don’t eat it but use it for Doodlebug since it is especially important for growing children to have cultured butter.  TheMan and I, and most of our house-guests use sea-salted butter purchased from Trader Joe’s that is from pastured cow’s but not cultured. It’s a lot cheaper.

Easy-Peasy means I’m not making my own yogurt right now from our (cheap) raw milk. I’m buying the full fat, cream on top, organic, grass-fed (when I can find it) by the quart or cup or whatever I can get my hands on for sale. I prefer the cups right now because they are the perfect serving size for Doodlebug and she has gotten to where she can help herself to it now which means I don’t have to take the time to serve it up and break the flow of momentum with whatever else I’m doing.

Easy-Peasy means my home Kombucha operation got shut down until further notice. Instead of drinking it by the gallon we now drink it by the carefully rationed bottle full. I had forgotten how very expensive Kombucha is to buy! So it’s now the occasional, rare actually, treat.

Easy-peasy means the crock pot hardly see’s a day of rest anymore. I do a huge thing of dried organic beans in it about once a week and season them heavily. We then add the beans in some way as an accent or the main feature to meals all during the rest of the week. It’s cheap, it’s fast and I don’t have to stand over it for hours getting it just right. Just to clarify, these are not beans I took the time to sprout. They are thoroughly soaked in Whey water but once the Whey runs out it’ll just be soaked in plain ol’ water again like in the olden times before I knew what Whey was. =P If the bean’s aren’t taking up crock pot space bone broth is. If it isn’t bone broth it’s soup with bean and broth in it. If it isn’t soup it’s roast an if it isn’t roast…well, you get the idea. My easy-peasy life relies heavily on the crock pot.

Easy-peasy means I am not learning how to make my own gluten free recipes with all the failures and tweakings that go along with that process. Instead I am buying gluten free mixes (after carefully vetting for other undesirable ingredients first) Hands down my favorites for both price, taste and ingredient listings are from Trader Joe’s. If you substitute Organic, Extra Virgin Coconut oil and coconut milk in the place of water and veggie oil in their Brownie Mix it produces moist, gooey brownies that are to DIE for. I never knew a mix could taste that good. Oh and extra Vanilla. Don’t forget the extra splash of Vanilla. Trader Joe’s gluten free Pancake and Waffle mix is also delicious for both of those items but can be converted as well into a crumb topping for cobblers and other delicious gluten free items. Quite the versatile base mix.

Easy-peasy means I am buying sprouted grain bread from Whole Foods for TheMan and Doodlebug (and household guests) to eat instead of making my own. I’ve found two types at Whole Foods that I am comfortable enough with their ingredient listings to do this guilt free. Easy-Peasy means I am buying my own gluten free bread from Whole Foods as well. Since it does cost more for bread bought vs. made we eat less of it and more cheap brown rice and quinoa as filler grains.

Easy-peasy means my veggie garden is now returning to the yard from whence it came with nothing edible growing in it at all. This makes me sad and I hope gardening returns to my life soon. It’s been fun to dabble in gardening and eating what was grown here on our own property by our own hands is especially satisfying.

Easy-peasy means I am going to stop blogging and go pack for a week long business trip to Chicago. Oh wait, nevermind, that is one of the things forcing me to do everything else easy-peasy!

Until next time,

Sincerely,

Love,

Hugs,

Fond thoughts and wishes,

God Bless,

The De-Railed-Detained and otherwise Distracted Traditional Foods Adventurer

Me N The Doodlebug